Judge Makes Clear Ruling Doesn’t Block Treasury Secretary From Accessing Data Following Controversial JD Vance Attack

AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File

U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas clarified on Tuesday an earlier court ruling blocking DOGE officials from accessing certain data at the Treasury Department.

Over the weekend U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer, an Obama appointee, ruled that Elon Musk and his government efficiency team could not access the federal payments system and that they must immediately destroy any materials they collected.

Engelmayer’s ruling was quickly appealed by Trump’s DOJ and led to an onslaught of attacks from MAGA world, which quickly claimed that the ruling also barred Treasury officials from accessing the data.

“A corrupt judge protecting corruption,” Musk wrote in response to the ruling. “He needs to be impeached NOW.”

Vargas made clear in her new ruling that DOGE officials remained barred from accessing the Treasury data, but wrote that Trump’s political appointees at the department did have access. The Hill reported:

Though U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas agreed to slightly loosen the restrictions, which were ordered by a separate judge, she did not accept the Justice Department’s bid to dissolve them entirely.

Vargas kept intact restrictions that block political appointees and special government employees, like Musk and DOGE personnel, only exempting [Scott] Bessent and other senior department leaders whose roles require Senate confirmation.

The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake took a deep dive into the MAGA claims that the initial ruling barred all Treasury officials from accessing the sensitive payments system.

“A bunch of Trump allies floated defying court orders after they claimed a judge barred Treasury Secretary Bessent from key Treasury data. Except the judge didn’t seem to actually be doing that. And now the judge clarifies: He wasn’t,” wrote Blake of Vargas’s ruling. Blake explains the wording in the original ruling that led to the MAGA outrage:

The order temporarily prohibits Bessent and other defendants …
“from granting access to all political appointees, special government employees, and government employees detailed from an agency outside the Treasury Department …”

These folks are casting this as Bessent being prohibited from gaining access himself, because he’s a “political appointee.”

But the key modifier here is “from an agency outside the Treasury Department.”

They might argue that the “from an agency outside the Treasury Department” modifier doesn’t necessarily apply to “all political appointees.”

But if the intent was to bar everyone including Bessent, there’s no need for that modifier.

By that reading, Bessent would be barred from access, but not regular government employees (i.e. non-political appointees) from his own department.

Vice President JD Vance reacted to the Saturday ruling on X, writing, “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” Vance’s post sparked an avalanche of controversy as many viewed it as an attack on judicial power.

Blake also noted some of the various MAGA influencers who attacked the judge, writing, “Prominent right-wingers — Musk, Lee, Cotton, Gaetz — are throwing around words like “coup,” “impeach,” “corruption” in response to the judge’s DOGE ruling. Why? They claim the judge barred even Treasury Secretary Bessent from Treasury’s data. But that doesn’t appear true.”

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